Speculation On Large-Scale Phone Location Snooping

An anonymous reader recommends a speculative blog entry by Chris Soghoian up on CNet. Soghoian makes a convincing case that the NSA could be using loopholes in the law to gather real-time location information on the mobile phones of millions of people. There is no hard evidence that this is happening, but the blog post sheds light on the dense undergrowth of companies populating the wireless space that could be easy pickings for a National Security Letter with a gag order attached. "While these household names of the telecom industry [AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint] almost certainly helped the government to illegally snoop on their customers, statements by a number of legal experts suggest that collaboration with the NSA may run far deeper into the wireless phone industry. With over 3,000 wireless companies operating in the United States, the majority of industry-aided snooping likely occurs under the radar, with the dirty work being handled by companies that most consumers have never heard of."

Comments

Re:All I can say...

[lysergic.acid]

that's how i used to view owning a car, but after a while people stopped inviting me to get-togethers...

but seriously, there's relying on your friends when you accidentally leave your phone at home or in the car, and then there's treating your friends as walking pay phones. perhaps it's not as bad as telling people that you quit smoking and then bumming cigarettes off of everyone else. but it's still a pain in the ass trying to reach someone who doesn't have a cellphone.

i guess it all depends on your social life. maybe your friends are cool with it, or maybe you just don't need to use a cellphone very often. but i couldn't live without my cellphone. since getting a cellphone in high school i've lost the ability to remember people's phone numbers. this led to a rather embarrassing situation at the hospital when i couldn't tell the nurse what number to dial to reach my girlfriend.

Loopholes?

[Asmor]

the NSA could be using loopholes in the law

Why use loopholes when they don't have any qualms about outright breaking the law?

Re:Loopholes?

[DaveAtFraud]

What loopholes? You're carrying around a frigging transmitter that conveniently even transmits a unique identifier. There is no expectation of privacy any more than if you're talking on an old citizen's band radio.

The only forms of communication interception that require a court order are opening and reading someone's mail (strictly snail mail) or listening in on an actual phone conversation:

- phone records are public (who called who and for how long)
- e-mail is not private; never has been due to it's store and forward nature
- external addresses of snail mail received

If the information is readily available, there should be no expectation of privacy. A case can even be made that *ANY* broadcast communication (cell phone, wireless home phone, bluetooth headset, etc.) is not private. If you throw it out on the air waves, there's no guarantee that someone else isn't listening; even if by accident. As a guess, the government can also legally track you without a warrant (given sufficient interest and effort) using an RFID chip in one of your credit cards.

This isn't news. Get over it.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:An even bigger issue

[AndrewCWiggin]

Gag orders are quite legal.

First Amendment rights can be suspended if it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that it is in the interest of the common good. That is why it is illegal to yell "fire" in a theater when there is no fire - the possibility of people getting hurt in a panic balances your right to free speech.

Gag orders protect many national secrets that would cause the death of thousands, perhaps millions of people. They conceal the locations of government operatives, and protect the true capabilities of the nation's defense.

They are extremely beneficial when used correctly. Unfortunately, they are abused at a rate that is quite alarming by corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen.